The tire distribution process often includes transporting large quantities of tires from the plants where they are manufactured to the various facilities where tires are delivered to consumers and/or mounted on vehicles. The processes for transporting tires from these plants to wholesalers, retailers, and service centers typically involve the use of large vessels. For example, semi-trailers are used for transportation over the road, rail cars are used for transportation via rail, and shipping containers are used for transportation over water. Further, these vessels often provide storage of tires prior to and after transport.
To minimize the costs associated with such storage and transportation, it is desirable to pack tires into each storage and/or transportation vessel in such a manner as to maximize the density of tires within the vessel, while providing satisfactory stability of the loaded tires and avoiding permanent deformation of the loaded tires. Maintenance of tires under a compressive load has been found to improve the stability of the loaded tires. However, compression may lead to permanent deformation of tires in some stacking configurations.
In current operations, some companies use a contracted ricking service to manually load and unload trailers and railcars. Several manufacturers do not compress tires, but other manufacturers compress the tires with a forklift. The ricking service is a substantial labor expense at both the plant and the distribution center, while using a forklift to compress tires often results in inconsistent compression and tire damage.
To partially remedy these problems, devices have been developed to help in the compression of the tire stacks. These systems, however, continue to rely heavily upon manual labor to accomplish the stacking of tires. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,294 discloses an exemplary tire compression device and U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,142 discloses another tire compression device intended for use with a forklift. This device allows a preset load to compress a stack of tires as the stack is loaded into a truck trailer. Initially, the forklift elevates and supports the preset load. Then, once tires are stacked beneath the elevated load, the forklift allows the load to be lowered against a stack of tires. As a result, the load exerts a downward pressure on the stack of tires, thereby compressing the tires. Once the initial stack is compressed, additional uncompressed tires are loaded on top of the stack until the stack reaches the ceiling of the truck trailer. Then, the forks of the forklift are raised, partially releasing the pressure applied against the compressed portion of the stack and allowing it to expand, while compressing the previously uncompressed portion until the entire stack is equally compressed. This process is repeated, stack by stack, until the entire trailer is full of stacked, compressed tires. Other devices exist that load tires into a truck trailer and similarly compress tires within the trailer. In each of these cases, tires are maintained in compression by the storage and/or transportation vessel itself. However, no assurance exists that the vessel was designed or is suitable to maintain such loads. In fact, vessels are frequently damaged as a result of such use.
When the storage and/or transportation within the vessel is complete, tires are typically manually unloaded from the vessel onto a conveyor or pallet. A variety of implements exist for such handling of tires. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,526 discloses a device for manipulating tires. However, a device does not exist that sufficiently eliminates the difficulties of manually stacking tires in a storage and/or transportation vessel, and unloading the compressed tires from the same vessel. Moreover, no sufficient device currently exists to eliminate the reliance on the vessel to maintain a compressive load on tires. Although loaders for tires exist, for example, a machine loader and a loader to create a straight stack of tires, the existing loaders are not designed to stack tires in a herringbone pattern. Further still, the current practice is to rest tires directly against the wall and floor of the trailer or boxcar. As a result, the weight of the stacks is unevenly distributed causing further compression and strain on tires. Thus, a lower-compression system for cradling tires during storage and shipping is desired.
A need exists for a system and method for loading tires into a vessel for storage and/or transportation, whereby tires are automatically loaded into a tire transport frame such that the tire transport frame is moved into the vessel by a forklift. A need also exists for a system and method for loading tires into a tire transport frame outside of the vessel for storage and/or transportation, whereby the tire transport frame holds the stacked tires in a compressed state and maintains the stacked tires in proper alignment during shipment and storage. A need also exists for a system and method for loading tires into a vessel for storage and/or transportation such that the loading is automatic, thereby reducing the labor, time, space, risk of injury, and cost required for loading and unloading of tires, while enhancing the safety of the process.